Category Archives: work

Last weekend I went on assignment to Rose City Comic Con for Panda Mony Toys. We are releasing our first action figure line next year and we are looking for cool shows to visit. Rose City was pretty great! Here’s a video of my adventures:

If you like t-shirts, hoodies and coffee mugs I suggest you check out our merch in our SHOP.

I did this movie last year. We shot at Aldworth Manor in late September and October. It was a gorgeous location and such a great time with a great team. I’m very grateful to have had this experience and I’m REALLY excited for you all to see it!

In part 1 we covered what a startup is and the four best practices to help get that startup moving, with definitions tweaked to work for the entertainment industry (although those tweaks may work for other industries as well). Having an idea of what to do is important and positive and helps get all the work off on the right foot. That being said, it is nice to also know what pitfalls to avoid so you can do your best not to fail on accident. Just like articles on what to do to help your startup succeed there are as many, if not more, articles about what makes a startup fail.

Thinking about it, that makes sense since, by definition, a startup has no guarantee of success so many of them (most of them even) fail. Entertainment careers are no different. In this life you hear “no” a lot more than “yes.” You can have a series go to pilot and then not get picked up. You can be edited out of a commercial after you’ve already shot it. For resilience we all say that it’s, “just part of the biz” but, part of the biz or not, that much rejection can be draining. So the following are four mistakes that can kill your startup inspired by and paraphrased from this article: The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups. Why are there not 18? Because not all of the mistakes really apply to my topic. Sure, I could shoehorn in a few descriptions and get all symbolic with the language, but that isn’t the goal. The goal is to have strong points that are easy to identify and avoid to keep things moving in a positive career direction. But if you want to read all 18, and I suggest you do, go to the link.

Before we get started with the actual four mistakes, I’d like to point out a overarching general mistake that the author Paul Graham points out that also makes very good sense in an entertainment career:

“In a sense there’s just one mistake that kills startups: not making something users want. If you make something users want, you’ll probably be fine, whatever else you do or don’t do. And if you don’t make something users want, then you’re dead, whatever else you do or don’t do. So really this is a list of (sic) things that cause startups not to make something users want. Nearly all failure funnels through that.”

In his explanation let’s trade out the word “user” for “audience.” Entertainment exists to be experienced by people, there isn’t any way around that. As a general rule of thumb: make and do the things you believe in and have passion for. Those are the things that have the best chance of taking off and if they don’t you can at least feel good about the attempt.

Now on to the mistakes:

Bad Location. The internet and prosumer equipment have really allowed people to make high quality content just about anywhere, but if you want to work on the bigger shows and films (hell even the big online stuff) you need to be in one of the major entertainment hubs: Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta or New Orleans. Although theres also North Carolina, Chicago, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon and the occasional shoot in Hawaii. And Canada. Puerto Rico is offering some really nice tax incentives so some productions are moving over there… All kidding aside, even with this expansive list there are still very few cities that can actually handle and support a large amount of filming. If you are ok just shooting with your friends and putting it up online then more power to you. Hollywood is decentralizing and I predict that we’re going to see more migration away from Southern California over the next five to ten years, but there will still be industry hubs where the camera crews live and where you can find a guy who can record decent sound. You want those people so you should be where they are.

Derivative Ideas. Don’t just copy. I know Hollywood does it all the time, but those are the things people make fun of Hollywood for doing. I’m not saying that you can’t have your own spin on an existing idea, but don’t just straight up copy. Here’s an example: Zombies have been the dominate movie monster for over a decade now. There has been zombie everything, but the ones I remember: The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, and Shaun of the Dead all had unique takes on the genre. You don’t need to be the first person with an idea, but you do need to have a way to make it your own.

Choosing the wrong platform. This literally came up in conversation today and it seems like something that I talk about with people all the time. There is both a literal and a figurative meaning to “platform.” The literal has to do with distribution of content that you and your team may be creating. When you decide how to get it out to the audience you either need to build to the distribution you have access to or hustle to get the distribution you feel the content requires. For example: I spoke to a buddy just today about their new project that, in my opinion (which happened to be an opinion he shared), needs to be a web release. It is built in tight little vignettes that are great for online audiences and the pieces all combine together into one big narrative that he could release as a stand-alone product and/or send to film festivals. But there is talk about converting it to feature length and trying to get the funding to do a movie version. In my head, at this time with the options available to them, online seems like the no brainer. Doing this project as a television show wouldn’t work, the premise wouldn’t last beyond a season. Doing it as a movie might work, but it would require a heavy rewrite and a massive investment. Right now they have a completed product ready to launch and it would be a shame not to release it. The figurative meaning of “platform” is for the actor. We can trade out “platform” for “type.” One of the biggest complaints that I hear from my casting director friends is that people submit for things that they have no chance of getting. As an responsible auditioning actor you need to be honest with yourself about your type. If you happen to be a strawberry blond skinny guy who does prat falls and makes faces you should not submit yourself for roles where they usually cast Ian Somerhalder. I promise you, Ian Somerhalder is going to get that part. Overall I think the lesson here is to play to your strengths. Swinging for the fences is great and all, but you still need to be smart about it.

Not wanting to get your hands dirty. This is probably the biggest crime in all of the entertainment business, especially for people new to it. As great as this job is, there is nothing easy about it. If it were easy everyone would do it because it’s awesome. A lot more people could do it, but most are not willing to put in the amount of work that it takes to do it right. Hell, even thirty years later I’m still finding ways that I’m deficient in my efforts. It’s an ever changing business that requires constant effort. If you’re not up for that find something else to do with your time.

Did I miss anything? Are there any best practices that I could have added to part 1? Let me know in the comments.

Sitting on the couch watching Rene sort papers, listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour, sitting next to a sleeping dog and a cat who is cleaning himself. It’s a pretty mellow day – even if a good part of that day was spent doing maintenance for pet and home.

Rene and I are enjoying the day as a rest day. We did the big “hang out & eat bar-b-que” yesterday and, with the exception of the occasional pops and whistles from illegal fireworks outside, today doesn’t really feel much like a holiday. It’s a welcome change.

I do have some work to do today – easy fun work, but work all the same – and a video to post on WiggyWebs.

To end today I’d like to feature a picture of Frankie with his America bandana:

Like this:

Man, oh man was it hard to get back on the ball today! Really could have used a few more days at South Coast and maybe a spa treatment or six – but work waits for no man!

Today ended up being a pretty easy day anyway -private student and then teaching the regular class – so even though we’re technically “back” my brain was still a bit on vacation.

At least it was until I was attacked in the mouth by this:

This was a terrible brownie! Horrible! It tasted like dry cake mix and while some of you may like dry cake mix straight out of the box (I confess I’ve enjoyed a spoonful or two in my life) this was not dry cake mix given easily eaten solid form.

It was gross and crumbly and I will not buy another Togo’s brownie again until either A) I forget how bad this one was or B) they get a new brownie.

See you tomorrow!

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It has not been a particularly target rich environment for photography today. I’ve had work to do, writing to be exact. In fact, as I write this, I have received notes on the first pass and a suggestion to wait until a different piece of the proposal is finished before going to a second pass because it may change the tone of the one-sheet.

It’s ok, there’s plenty to do. The photograph I have selected for today shows all of the items that have been very important today: my phone, computer and iPod.

The Phone: My phone is my life-line to everything I do. Even though it rarely leaves my side, I’m still behind on getting back to people.

The Computer: Especially right now, I do as much writing for business as I spend time on the phone so the computer is essential. Also, today is the day I re-install my drive back-ups so all of my info will be back on the healed desk top. It’s a good day for the desk top.

The iPod: Ever since I got iTunes set back up I’ve been downloading my podcasts again. I had 111 podcasts built up since December 5th. I’ve been listening my ears off trying to catch up, but it makes work go by easy.

I have to get ready to teach for tonight and I’ve got a meeting set up for tomorrow so I’m going to go finish stuff up.

See you tomorrow!

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It’s that weird time between Christmas and New Years where it’s still kind of a holiday, but it’s also a half-assed work week. I let myself sleep in this morning and then hopped right to work as soon as I work up (ah, the benefits of working from home) but, while there are a few “busy work” assignments that need to get done, there isn’t all that much that I can be proactive about on the bigger projects. It’s a bit frustrating, but relieving at the same time, there’s only so much that can get done and, as long as I do those things, I really can’t be mad at myself.

What is this lull like for you? I bet you folks in retail have no slow points in the immediate future! And what about regular business? Is this a wasted week? Leave a comment about your lull time – I’d like to know.

See you tomorrow!

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When working for myself I find that I need to create ways to supervise myself so that the things that need to get done get done – or at least started to the best of my ability. To do that I keep a list of what has been accomplished that day. In the past I tried to do it in Excel. I like computer records because you can look things up really easily, but I hate data entry so I never kept up with this.

Because of that I have resorted to pen & paper. So far it has been VERY effective, but it’s hard to keep record of. Do any of you, out there on the interwebs, have any solutions I could try – or maybe an Excel template I could swipe from you?